Thursday, November 03, 2011

"The Growthbusters"

by contributor Megan Podeszwa

“GrowthBusters” held its world premiere at The West End Cinema with filmmaker Dave Gardner in tow. Naturally, as most filmmakers do, he offered some words of wisdom in his opening remarks. “I’m standing here tonight because I feel like the people of the world need someone to tell them the truth.”

Photo credit Yoonjeong Oh

"Everything we thought we knew is wrong! Okay, maybe not everything. But what if some of our core beliefs about how the world works turn out to be myths?"

The film examines the growth that was taking place in Gardner’s hometown and what he tried to do to stop it. Gardner believes that the world that we live in is expanding too fast.

While many people believe that economic and population growth is good for our society, Gardner is trying to show us that this isn’t necessarily a good thing and how in our finite world, we are running out of room for expansion.

He shows how through all the expansion, in business, family and spending money, we are not only contributing to our carbon footprint, but we also aren’t helping our country in any other way.

Through his film, Gardner wants to show the world that by being content with what we have, it may benefit us in the long run. The rate at which our country is expanding is currently too rapid and we can take control of our economy and our businesses by working with what we already have.

Memorable quotes:

“If the entire world consumed as much as the average American does, then we would need nine planets in order to … sustain everyone.” Raj Patel, author Stuffed and Starving

“In an empty world, it was a safe bet that growth was making us richer, but we no longer live in an empty world. We live in a full world.” Herman Daly, former Sr. Economist, The World Bank

“As a businessman and a proud capitalist to be actually talking about restraining growth is…uh…it’s almost blasphemous.” Dick Smith, author Dick Smith’s Population Crisis